Users of electronic products continue to demand new features, speed, data, or reliability sometimes unwittingly. These demands have continually driven the electronics industry to reduce size, improve utility, or increase performance of the integrated circuits and integrated circuit packages contained within these electronic products. We have become very accustomed to and sometimes dependent on many modern conveniences that include electronic technology.
Electronic products have become an integral part of our daily lives. Notably, many portable electronics with integrated circuits are not only common but also often used without a user realizing that there is underlying electronic technology or the extent of the electronic technology. Many products such as cell phones, portable computers, voice recorders, cars, planes, etc. include very sophisticated technology that may or may not be obvious to an end user.
In order to interface an integrated circuit with other circuitry, it is common to mount it on a lead frame or substrate. Each integrated circuit has bonding pads that are individually connected to the lead frame's lead finger pads using extremely fine gold or aluminum wires. The assemblies are then packaged by individually encapsulating them in molded plastic or ceramic bodies to create an integrated circuit package.
In addition to the physical and electrical protection, many integrated circuit devices require protection from electromagnetic interference (EMI) as well. Integrated circuit devices and behave erratically or fail altogether if subjected to sufficient electromagnetic interference. Other integrated circuit devices or components can produce electromagnetic radiation as part of their typical operation so care must be taken to protect sensitive devices.
There is a significant demand for integrated circuit packages with EMI shielding. Attempts to shield packages such as quad flat no-lead (QFN) have struggled with process simplicity, robustness of package construction, and efficiency of EMI shielding including coverage area of the shield. There have been many limitations in shield footing, shield attach methods, and electrical grounding.
There continue to be issues with package shielding such as complex processing, poor package construction, or insufficient shielding. Complex processing often results in higher costs or decreased yield. Poor package construction can result in decreased yield or unreliable operation. Insufficient shielding can result in intermittent of partial failures due to poor device coverage or failures do to less than needed performance.
Despite the advantages of recent developments in integrated circuit and integrated circuit package manufacturing, there is a continuing need for improving integrated circuit package shielding to provide improved process simplicity, robust package construction, and efficiency of EMI shielding.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system to provide improved shielding. In view of the increasing demand for improved density of integrated circuits and particularly portable electronic products, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.